


Sandstorm

by Ladycat



Series: In The Middle [2]
Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Angst, Dark, Multi, Post-Chosen, Post: s05e22 Not Fade Away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-11
Updated: 2014-02-11
Packaged: 2018-01-12 00:34:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1179803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>God, the hope in that voice. It hurts more than wood through the chest, more than watching the one you love most turn and walk away, leaving you. Because you aren’t the one this voice aches for. You’re worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sandstorm

Spike thinks about Connor as a baby. Would he have been a small, chubby thing, pink skin and wide-flailing arms? He must have been, same as all babies are. Spike can’t see it, though. All he sees is a long, saturnine grace that belies the puppy exterior, skin pulled taut over muscle and bone and a fiery inside that’ll keep him from running to spare no matter how old, how out of shape he gets.

So different from the body on Spike’s other side, but then, he likes that.

He isn’t sure why he, Spike, is in the middle. Why he’s _always_ been in the middle from the very first moment the three of them tumbled and fumbled together, hurting and hiding and needing so badly that _what_ and _who_ are irrelevant. But still, it doesn’t make sense, does it? He’s the demon. Fully-fledged, for all he’s souled and fitted for a white-hat, same as the rest of them. He’s the _other_ , that foreign bit of grit that clouds their eyes and senses every time the go outside, tearing at skin to reveal the blood and bone and red-shiny muscle underneath.

The storm’s been raging for days, now. Xander says to ignore it, concentrate on other things to keep from going stir-crazy, and it’ll die down in another day or three. Nothing to worry about. Yet he can’t stop.

It should be Connor in the middle. Spike shifts just enough, ignoring the mumbled noise to his left to stare at the boy on his right. A boy, still, for all he neither waves nor gums mindless at the air. Young and innocent when he sleeps, his dreams never troubled by dark shades or darker nets that reach out, ensnaring. He’s _not_ an innocent, Connor. He hasn’t ever been one, not even when he cuddled on his father’s chest, expensive perfume shrouding him as Cordelia lay by their side, Gucci-clad in her maternity. It’s a pretty picture when Connor describes it. The one memory he has of being a child, though whether it’s a legitimate memory or one born of others’ tales, Spike doesn’t know. Doesn’t care.

He’s fractured, this boy. Split in two. He’s got the cravings of a beast, the darkness and preternatural urges that make him half Spike’s. But he’s half Xander’s, too—at least, the Xander that Spike remembers. All bouncing energy and eager need for life, skin shiny from disuse, voice a lightened treble, unencumbered by the futures burdens. There’s _hope_ there, hope a jaded demon a century plus can’t manage no matter how hard he tries, the ability to look forward only barely tempered by the knowledge that the road before them ends with a cliff. That’s why he should be in the middle. He’s half of both of them, the link that glues them together, providing hypotenuse to two straight lines.

But it’s Spike who does that.

And he doesn’t know why.

Silent as the dead creature he is, Spike extracts himself from two warm bodies. The reaction is immediate, as always. Two bodies roll, four hands searching for the cool, solid presence that had been between them. Their hands glance, fingers skirting away from each other for long moments before they finally connect. The discomfort, almost hydrostatic, doesn’t ease, not entirely. But they both still calm, snuggling down close and sleeping peacefully again.

Well. Mostly peacefully. Spike smooths back locks of hair grown oily from sleep, tracing his fingers over skin flushed from whatever nightmare that grips Xander that moment, pushing it back, encouraging true sleep to return. Only when he’s certain that both his humans slumber without fear does Spike go downstairs.

Downstairs is cool. It’s always cool, no matter what the temperature outside, no matter how the winds grasp and whisper around them. The windows are shuttered, protected, and Spike again thanks the spell he knows Xander doesn’t know about and Connor could care less about. Thanks Willow for being there in a pinch, willing to help even if she isn’t willing to accept.

The phone is where Spike left it, silver and little enough to be pretty. Spike hates phones. Oh, he likes them as props, as tiny gadgets of modernity. But as far as communication goes, they suck worse than the telegraph. Nothing beats a decently written letter, handwriting speaking as much as the words, paper soft against your fingers. Spike wishes he could use a letter here and now, to pour out his thoughts, organize them into something more logical than the tumbleweeds in his mind—but he’s too impatient. He wants to hear the response now.

The phone is too smooth, too breakable in his grip. He clenches his fingers around it, trying to stop the tremble as he listens to it ring. And ring. And—

“Connor?”

God, the hope in that voice. It hurts more than wood through the chest, more than watching the one you love most turn and walk away, leaving you. Because you aren’t the one this voice aches for. You’re worse.

“No. S’me.”

“Spike.” The hope crumbles into the bits of trash that batter against their home. Hearing it, almost _feeling_ it through the damned airwaves, Spike regrets his decision to ever leave the warmth of his bed, the safety of— “Are you okay?”

“Am I—what?”

There should’ve been anxiousness there, rock-headed certainty that something was wrong with his precious boy, that Spike was bearer of bad news. Or teasing him into thinking that. Something low and despicable, like a worm cut in half on the sidewalk, too disgusting to play with, too fascinating to resist. Spike knows that concern will never truly be given to him. So why the voice sounds _warm_ with it ... ?

“Of course it’s not okay. You’re only quiet when you’re brooding.”

“I am not brooding, you hedgehog of a tosser!”

“Yes, you are. Or you’d call me something worse than ‘hedgehog’. You’ve used it too many times.”

When the hell did he get good enough to read Spike after a handful of words and a long pause? Spike glowers at the table, annoyed and uncertain as to why he called in the first place. What on earth does he expect Angel to help him with? It’s his _son_ he’s just left upstairs in bed. With another man. In the middle of Africa, location unknown other than ‘sand storm’.

Having two vampires on the phone is decidedly confusing. There’s no breath from either of them to read.

“I don’t know why I called.”

“That’s okay. I... I’m glad you did.”

Er? That’s not in any of the scripts Spike’s got bouncing around behind his eyes, and it clearly surprises Angel as well, if the nervous laugh is anything to go by. “You are?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m not leaving them. Him. Either of ’em.” There’re more words there, suddenly a flood of them, ready to tumble out and swamp them both in messages that never need to be spoken. Spike grits his teeth to hold the tide back, straining to hear something across staticy nothing.

“I didn’t expect you would, Spike. I’m glad.”

That there’s actual sincerity there spurs Spike into a laugh, leaning back so his chair rests on only two legs. Unstable, that. “Yeah, right. I’ve got your boy in the middle of sodding Africa, and I’m—”

“Believe me when I say I _don’t_ want to hear the details, Spike. And yeah, I am glad. He needs—what you can give. You and Xander.”

Something broke. “And what the hell are we supposed to give him, huh? Me, the vampire who’s always been sodding cracked in the skull even before I turned into a goody two shoes? And lets not talk about Harris. You remember, the bratty teenager you _hated_ back in Sunnydale, and the quiet, despairing man he’s become here in the middle of fucking nothing. Oh yeah. We’re giving him a whole lot, Angel.”

“Why you’re calling _me_ for this—Spike, I’m not your biggest fan. You know that. And yeah, I hated Xander back in high school. He was a stuck up kid who hated me simply because the girl he wanted wouldn’t even look at him ’cause of me and because I was _so_ jealous of him. And... you.”

Jealous? Spike’s fingers go nerveless, the phone trembling in his loosened grip. Jealous? “Yeah, right,” he scoffs.

“You caught me in an introspective mood,” Angel tells him with a shrug that’s audible. “And yeah. I was.”

“Why? Cause we never got the girl and, here’s something to be jealous over, _you did?_ ”

“No. Because you two were always more worthy of the girl.”

Spike wonders what, exactly, kind of mood he has caught Angel in. There’s a level of frankness they’ve never shared before, not in all the wandering after L.A., or all the arguments they’ve ever shared. This is almost, well, _nice_. Angel is never nice to him. Not without something to gain. “You been drinking?” he accuses. “Never mind, I don’t want to know if you are. And, anyway, it doesn’t matter. It’s not ...” Not Connor that they’re sharing, loving. It’s _him_ , though he barely gets his thoughts in the same room as that understanding, let alone reading the scribbles his subconscious has decorated the walls with.

Angel’s laughter is so surprising Spike does start, losing the phone. Scrambling after it, cursing loud enough that he’ll probably wake the sleepers upstairs, Spike picks it back up to hear Angel calling him all kinds of names. Well. That’s at least more familiar.

“You—you _git_ ,” Angel sums up. “Shut up and listen to me, Spike, because I promise I will never say such nice things about you again. Nice guys finish last. They always do and you, Spike, and Xander, and even Connor, are the nice guys. You don’t turn into psychopaths towards the one you love, you don’t have a problem being close. Hell, you’re more smothering than anything else.”

Well, yeah, this is all true. But that doesn’t explain why _Spike_ is in the middle, instead of the two of them offering all those qualities to Connor, who needs it. It’s Connor that’s broken, torn in two, and it’s Spike and Xander who always offer succor. Or maybe it’s Xander’s turn, the way it was when this first started, Xander needing the company so badly that he grasped at straws. But not _his_. He doesn’t need that.

“My suggestion?” Angel says, interrupting Spike’s thoughts.

“No, I’m not using the hair gel you use. Christ, Angel, don’t you think of anything else?”

“Asshole. _Stop worrying about it._ You aren’t supposed to give all of yourself without getting anything in return, Spike. Stop comparing them to me or Dru or Buffy. It’s insulting. To them. And tell Xander that if he wants to have any more heart-to-hearts he can call Giles. I’ll only do it for _my_ side of the family.”

The phone clicks off in his ear, leaving Spike slack-jawed and stunned as he stares at the microwave. Angel just—no, he really—

“Hey.” Both of his hands are taken, tugged in different directions as two warm, sleepy grins are given to him. Spike looks at them blindly, his gaze finally settling on Connor since he spoke first. “So what’d Dad say?”

“How’d you know I called Angel?”

This time the grins are exchanged above his head. “Easy,” Xander says. “We did. And we hate him _slightly_ less than you do—ow!”

“I don’t hate my father, Xander,” Connor says, laughter lurking under the prim gaze and a hand as red as the mark on Xander’s arm.

“Fine. I have the least _baggage_ with him, compared to the two of you. Is that better? Anyway. Connor called him first, and then I did since I figured that he’d have a better idea of how your insane minds worked than all of my mentor-figures.”

“And we figured,” Connor says, picking up the tale, “that all you needed was one good sleepless night.” Sliding onto Spike’s lap, Connor leans down for a long, slow kiss. “That talking to Angel might be the only thing to help you.”

“Help me?” He’s trying for casual but it comes out strained. “Why should you lot be concerned?”

Neither of them answer in words. They don’t need to. The touch of their bodies, the flickering of their eyes in the shadows, do the answering for them. And when they take him upstairs and lay him down, mouths and fingers busy over his body, Spike doesn’t mind at all that he’s in the middle. For the moment.


End file.
